Cape Verde, Caribbean of Africa

Hello

I am now in Cape Verde where I shall be staying for one week. During my voyage the Captain said that for the two weeks on board I had to do exactly what he says and that he rules on board....well more or less!!? He stated that :-
1. The Captain is always right!
2. At any time the Captain is wrong paragraph 1 is activated.
3. Together we agreed on a 3rd paragraph which was, every time we need to anchor HE had to buy a cold beer for both of us.

The Captain as in paragraph 1.

The sailing went so well it was almost boring . Everything went so perfectly that we arrived in harbour right on time at Sunrise. All perfect with the time and the wind.
During the trip I thought we would at least experience a small storm, a collision with a whale or something similar. But no, nothing like it. Hans (Captain) said that, "A gentleman sailor never sails badly."



Then my brother was certainly not a great gentleman. He proved that when he tried to pick me up in Canada. He came into a hurricane, had headwinds, was rescued by helicopter, almost sunk by a whale and was almost christianised which is not the worst that could have happened to him. He could almost qualify to be a true Viking.

The route that we sailed from Gran Canaries to Cape Verde.

In total we sailed 950 nautic miles (1759km) in 8 days with an average of 6.3 kmiles.per hour
There were very large waves for the first 3 days which threw the bota about...a lot, so much so that I was seasick for 3 days continuously vomiting most of the time. But at least I lost 5 kg of my beer belly which I had accrued over the last six months.

We passed the day with baking pancakes the way Hans showed me
(1, 2 & 3..... one egg, two parts flour and 3 parts water, a little salt and milk powder). Everyday we had pancakes for lunch and dinner with a small siesta in between.



Hans had bought a new PC and wanted to impress me with his sattelite receiver to the Internet. In his 7 years of sailing he had never seen the spray from the sea enter the cockpit and when it happened he spent the whole evening with small tears in his eyes. I laughed a lot.

Cape Verde

Cape Verde is called the African Caribbean and I must agree. It almost felt like I was in Brazil with the rhythm of the drums on the streets and many sexy women. Strange that I never heard of Cape Verde before!? It hasn't been very long that the islands have been discovered for tourism which means that it still has a lot of it's original unspoilt charm and beauty. I am now in Ilha de Sao Vicente which is one of the many islands with a population of about 40,000 people. It is not a fertile island rather, as the Vikings would say, a brown island. But the colonial cities are intact and the landscape is very beautiful.



Fish market.

I had promised to finish my book by the time I arrived in Gambia or never write it. Vikings are not well known for using their heads to achieve something.

I tried to find a new name for my most recent bike. The last one I called “my wife” but sadly she is now deceased. I thought of "Sleipner" but it could be brought together with the big ship disaster. I also thought of "Freya". If anyone has a proposal please let me know. Hans advised me to name it Iduna the godess of youth source. But in Norway, there is a company "Idun" that manufactures ketchup and fries. And believe me these two really do not keep you young!